A woman whose husband was diagnosed with a brain tumour just three months after their wedding is trekking 100km across The Sahara in his memory.

Rachel Bartholomew is fundraising after her husband David died at the age of 28, just 14 months into their marriage.

He had a seizure not long after they were married and was later diagnosed with a glioblastoma, the most common aggressive brain tumour in adults.

Rachel, who works at the University of Nottingham, became a widow at 26.

But seven years on she is doing the gruelling Sahara Trek in support of The Brain Tumour Charity to raise money for research and awareness. She flew out to Morocco on Saturday (February 23) ahead of the 100km trek.

This is her story.

Meeting and marrying David

In March 2007, Rachel was a 21-year-old archaeology student in her final year at Leicester University when she met David, then 23, through their mutual friend, Lucy.

“We hit it off straightaway," said Rachel. "He was funny and made me laugh."

Within six weeks, they were a couple, and David proposed after eight months on New Year’s Eve, 2007.

Soon they both had jobs at Oxford University, and he’d moved in with Rachel at her mum’s in the city.

The couple got married on September 2, 2010.

Rachel and David on their wedding day, September 2010 (Image: The Brain Tumour Charity)

“It was a magical day - what I remember most is being the calmest I’ve ever felt in my life,” said Rachel, now a student services manager at the University of Nottingham.

“As I got ready, there were no nerves, just calmness – I knew I was marrying the right person.

“David said he was really nervous but the second he saw me walking up the aisle, he felt that sense of calm, too.”

But within three months of their wedding, David was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour.

Diagnosis

At the beginning of December 2010, David's eyesight had started to deteriorate.

“It was like something was blocking his vision at the top right of both his eyes ,” said Rachel.

“He went for an eye test at an optician’s who said there was nothing physically wrong with his eyes and referred him to the eye hospital, where they said it was likely to be nerve-related.

“They managed to squeeze us in for a CT scan at the end of the day.

“We were told that the scan had revealed an anomaly in David’s brain and he was referred for an MRI scan as soon as possible.”

Read More

“I woke up to the bed shaking and David making this weird noise that I can only describe as a cat growling,” said Rachel.

“I called 999 and the paramedics helped David to his feet and into the ambulance.

“David told me later that he remembers nothing until getting into the ambulance and driving through the snow to hospital.”

David Bartholomew was a keen musician (Image: The Brain Tumour Charity)

David was put on steroids to relieve the pressure on his brain. He had an MRI scan on Christmas Eve, but they had to wait until two weeks after Christmas for the results.

“When doctors confirmed it was a brain tumour, it didn’t feel real,” said Rachel, now now 33. "I just couldn’t register anything they were saying."

Three days later, David had a four-hour biopsy with a metal frame strapped to his head.

After an agonising 10-day wait, the biopsy results confirmed David had a grade 4 glioblastoma – a highly aggressive brain cancer which has a prognosis of 12 to 18 months.

"I knew it was terminal, but I didn’t ask for David’s prognosis – I didn’t want to know,” said Rachel. “ I just couldn’t process it and wanted to focus all my energy on him and being there for him.

“Looking back, I was in denial. But felt I had to keep David positive and we still discussed our future plans and dreams."

Treatment

Surgery wasn’t an option due to the tumour being in too dangerous a position.

David had radiotherapy every day at the Churchill Hospital cancer centre in Oxford for six weeks, travelling from their new home in Banbury.

He was also put on Temozolomide chemotherapy tablets and kept on steroids.

"Radiotherapy left him exhausted and his eye sight was getting worse,” said Rachel. "His speech was also affected. He knew what the words were in his mind but just couldn’t say them, which really frustrated him.

"He was a keen musician and missed being able to play with his band – it felt like he was losing his identity piece by piece.

“The steroids made him put on about four stone, which made him feel very bloated and uncomfortable.

“It affected his confidence, but I did my best to reassure him I still loved him.”

Rachel Bartholomew is doing the walk in memory of David (Image: The Brain Tumour Charity)

Over the following months, David’s condition got progressively worse, and they moved back to Oxford to be nearer the hospital and Rachel’s family for support.

"From around June 2011, he was really struggling,” said Rachel. “He had seizures, short term memory problems and was getting weaker.”

They planned a weekend away to Stratford-upon-Avon to celebrate their first wedding anniversary in September 2011.

"We were really looking forward to it, but as soon as we got to the hotel, David had two seizures," said Rachel. “I called an ambulance and he had two more seizures on the way to hospital."

David was in hospital for 10 days with breathing problems and an infection.

David's death

Back at home, Rachel started making arrangements to adapt the house so she could care for him.

But within a few weeks, his condition deteriorated rapidly, and he went into a hospice in October 2011.

“Towards the end, he didn’t want to see anyone else, he just wanted it to be the two of us,” said Rachel.

She got the call she’d been dreading on November 14, 2011.

“I’d gone home for some sleep and the hospice said I should come back in straightaway. When I got there with my mum, David was drifting in and out of consciousness.

“His last words to me were, ‘I love you.’

David in the hospice where he died in November 2011 (Image: The Brain Tumour Charity)

“As soon as he died, I knew it wasn’t him anymore. But I couldn’t take it in. This wasn’t the life we were meant to have.

“I was only 26 and, just over a year before, it had been our wedding day.

“We were so in love and excited about our future – we thought we had a whole life-time ahead of us. How was it possible I was now a widow?

“I kept putting off arranging David’s funeral, because that would make his death real, until my mum said, ‘You’ve got to do this'.”

Struggling with bereavement

After David died, Rachel went into shock.

"While David was ill, I solely focused on him,” she said. “I felt I had to keep him positive and for us to think about the future no matter what was likely to happen.

"I didn’t stop to think how I was doing, so I struggled after his death as everything we’d been through hit me - and I was grieving for him and the life we should have had together.

“We had talked about freezing his sperm but left it too late. Part of me regrets it as a baby would have been part of David but I wanted to share being parents with him. ”

Rachel had six months unpaid leave from work to travel, but ended up travelling for two-and-a-half years.

"I went to stay in Australia with our friend, Lucy, who’d introduced us,” she said.

"I was sad because I was meant to travel with David but felt compelled to go everywhere and see everything we’d planned and live life to the full for him, too.”

Rachel moved to Nottingham in 2014 (Image: The Brain Tumour Charity)

A new start

In September 2014, Rachel made a fresh start when she moved to Nottingham.

In 2016, four-and-half years after David died, a friend confided in her about texts he had sent saying he was frightened Rachel didn’t love him anymore and that she’d leave him.

"He’d never said those things to me and I was devastated that’s what was going through his mind. Not for one second did I stop loving him or not want to be with him.

"David was in regular contact with this friend during his treatment and she was someone he could to talk to about anything he didn’t want to upset me with.

"Although it broke my heart to hear his fears, I’m so grateful he had that support.”

Read More

Now Rachel is in a new relationship, and has been training in the Peak District by walking up to 18 miles a day.

“I met him six months ago, so its early days, and he’s been helping me train for the Sahara Trek,” said Rachel, who lives in the north of Nottingham city.

"It’s difficult as it’s been over seven years since David died, but I still can’t help feeling guilty. But, although we didn’t discuss it, I know he wouldn’t have wanted me to be alone and would want me to be happy again.

Rachel training for her trek (Image: The Brain Tumour Charity)

“David always supported me and encouraged me to be the best I could be. I don’t like camping and I hate sand, so he’d also think I was bonkers!

"The trek will be one of the biggest challenges I’ll ever face but I’m doing it to support The Brain Tumour Charity in David’s memory and for everyone else going through the same heartache we did.

“Whenever I struggle with anything in my life, I always think of David and what he would say to me, so he’ll give me strength and inspire me every step of the way.”

“ And I want to help raise money for research and awareness to help save other people’s lives being devastated by brain tumours. "

Sarah Lindsell, The Brain Tumour Charity’s chief executive, who is also doing The Sahara Trek, said: “Our hearts go out to Rachel for losing her husband at such a young age to this brutal disease – brain tumours are the biggest cancer killer of our children and under-40s in the UK, yet research is woefully under-funded.

“We are incredibly grateful to her and our other supporters who face the challenge of a lifetime doing the Sahara Trek to help us raise vital funds and awareness.

“As we receive no government funding, we rely on our wonderful supporters like Rachel, donations and gifts in wills to help us move nearer the goals in our research strategy, A Cure Can’t Wait, of doubling survival within 10 years and halving the harm brain tumours have on quality of life.”